An Orpington running group has raised £15,600 for a local autistic charity.

37 members of Fourdaysrunning, started by Ivor Reveley in 2010, took part in the 114 kilometre run from Canterbury to the Children on the Autistic Spectrum Parent’s Association (CASPA) centre in Orpington in May.

While Ivor sadly passed away in 2018, the group have raised over £120,000 in 10 years for CASPA, with around £7,000 raised through its Justgiving page by the end of the first day’s running this year.

Run organiser Richard Lewis said: “Sometimes it surprises me how generous people can be.

“A lot of people have been touched by autism and you say what you’re doing and they’ll say ‘my nephew suffers with autism, here’s £20’.

“It’s a lot of money but if it’s something that’s close to your heart, or for me if it’s something that would remind me of Ivor, then yes, take my £20.”

The 57-year-old from Orpington said: “Ivor was very good at making you want to do things that perhaps you didn’t want to, but he didn’t judge people.

“He was encouraging but never in a forceful way.

“If he said I want you all to run into this brick wall we’d have done it and it would have been less painful!”

Ivor’s widow, Fourdaysrunning member Christine Reveley, 60, said: “Ivor would be amazed with this result because it’s a really good sum of money and a lot more than we’ve made from other years.”

She added: “I’m over the moon.

“So many people are so supportive and some support it financially year after year.”

CASPA director Helen Laryea-Dyer said: “This money is lifechanging for our young people.

“We can do the work but we can’t do it without the funding to pay for our beautiful staff and everything else around it.

“It’s difficult to think that all these individual people have gone out to their friends and connections and asked for money, sold the CASPA story of all those individual isolated young people having a better life because of CASPA and created something which is incredible.

“It’s amazing and we’re forever grateful.”

CASPA currently works with over 300 autistic young people in Bromley.

The charity provides a social space for children and young people to learn and build self-worth, offering services which include clubs for under fives to over 18s, annual residentials and holiday initiatives.

It will soon open a Community Café for autistic young people to gain valuable employability skills while providing them with a safe space to socialise.